Strep Throat

The office has notified the kindergarten teachers that there is a case of strep throat in our grade level. Please be on the lookout for symptoms. 

If you have any questions, please let me know. 

Huskies Live!

As many of you know, our theme this month is the Iditarod! To celebrate everything we've learned and to show our school pride, the children were able to attend an assembly today which included real husky dogs!

The kindergartners were able to learn all about huskies, see an actual racing dogsled and learn how it works, as well as see video of the dogs racing! They were also able to watch the dogs practice their agility by jumping over poles and through tunnels!

Here is Matava, a six-year-old husky who was brought to Harlan by members of the Siberian Husky Club of Greater Detroit. We also met Matava's four-year-old nephew, Monk!

Here we are pretending to be a dogsled team, as we lined up in pairs in front of a real dogsled!

Thank you to Sharon and Suzanne for bringing in your amazing dogs!

Mystery Reader

Thank you to Jennifer S. for reading one of our favorite books, The Day the Crayons Quit!  We loved it!

If anyone is interested in participating in our Mystery Reader program, please use the SignUp Genius on the left side of our blog. 

Workshop SignUp Reminder

This is a gentle reminder that our second Parent Literacy Workshop will be held next Wednesday, April 2. If you and your kindergartener will be attending, please complete and return the bottom portion of the flyer that was sent home last Friday. If you need an additional flyer, please let me know. 

During this workshop, we will be discussing reading comprehension skills. We look forward to seeing as many people there as possible. I hope you can all make it!  

Dinner will again be provided from 5:30 - 6:00, with the workshop following through 7:00. 

Thank you in advance!

Schedule for the Week of 3/24 - 3/28

Monday (A) - Art

Tuesday (B) - Music

Wednesday (C) - PE

Thursday (D) - PE and Media Center

Friday (A) - Art

Please remember to bring a change of gym shoes on days we have PE and to return library books on days we visit the media center. 

Also, on Wednesday, March 26, Harlan will be participating in Huskies Live!, an interactive assessmbly with real huskies demonstrating their abilities including pulling sleds!  

Parent Literacy Workshop - Comprehension

Dear kindergarten families,                    

After the success of our first parent workshop on decoding, we are excited to offer our second workshop focusing on reading comprehension skills!  This session will include three stations, each one focusing on a different comprehension strategy.  Similar to our previous workshop, participants will be able to keep workshop materials so that they can practice these skills with their children at home.

We are inviting all interested parents to attend with their kindergarteners on Wednesday, April 2, 2014.  We will be serving a submarine sandwich and fruit dinner from 5:30 – 6:00, and the workshop will run between 6:00 – 7:00.

The results of the workshop and post-survey will be anonymously used as part of Mr. Kefgen’s Master of Arts thesis on parent involvement in early literacy.

The Kindergarten Team

A flyer was sent home in your child's blue folder today.  If you are planning to attend, please complete and return the bottom portion by Wednesday, March 26.

Thank you in  advance!

Fun Times with Mr. Price!

During choice time a few days ago, some of the children were playing with our molding foam.  It is like play dough, only it is made of lots of tiny, sticky spheres that will never dry out!

One of the children decided to to duplicate Mr. Price's facial hair to be silly.  Soon, everyone was pretending to be Mr. Price!  It was too funny not to share with him, so we went down to the gym to show him.

Here we are with our facial hair inspiration!

"Pulling Together" Book Drive

This is a gentle reminder that tomorrow, Wednesday, March 19, Harlan will be collecting new or slightly used children's books to donate to a Detroit elementary school.

We would love for all students who are able to participate. If you are able to, please remember to send in a book for the drive tomorrow.

Thank you in advance!

Gentle reminder

This is a gentle reminder that Wednesday, March 19 and Thursday, March 20 will be half days of school.  School will be let out at 12:05 on these days.  If your child's dismissal schedule will change due to the early dismissal, please let me know.

I look forward to seeing everyone at conferences this week!

  

Top of the morning to ye!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Last week, we learned about St. Patrick's Day. We learned all about leprechauns and their pots of gold!  We decided we would try and trick a leprechaun so that we could have his gold!

First, we decorated hats for our leprechaun, so he would be interested and come into our room. We learned that if a leprechaun tried on our hats, they would magically shrink to their size!  Here we are decorating the hats...

Here is what we found when we got to school today! Little hats!

We knew the leprechaun was in Room 100!

Here are some of our St. Patrick's Day activities:

We made our own rainbow chains and attached them to our own pots of gold.

We used our handprints to paint leprechauns, complete with red beards!

We even graphed Lucky Charms marshmallows!

When we went in the hall for lunch, we even found a big pile of treats that Lucky the leprechaun left for us!  

The best part was a letter that we could not read. We kept trying, but the words didn't make sense. Finally, we discovered that if we held it in front of a mirror, the words magically fixed themselves!

At the end if the day, we sat down to talk about all the fun things we did today. But, I just could not get comfortable in the Big Comfy Chair. I kept moving all around because something just didn't feel right. We decided to look under the cushion, and thus is what we found!

There was also a little note from Lucky that said he had been watching us all day, and we deserved some if his gold for all our hard work!

What an amazing day!  May the luck of the Irish be with you all!

2nd Trimester Report Cards

Report cards were sent home today in your child blue homework folder. Report cards are in a brown envelope with your child's name on it. 

Included with the report card is a list of the Common Core standards that we worked on over the last trimester. Hopefully this will explain a little more about what we have been doing and assessing for the report card.

Please feel free to bring your child's report card to your conference this week if you have any further questions. Also, I have the usual BPS report card envelopes for you to sign. They were not available for me to send home today, so I will have them at your child's conference. 

Thank you in advance!

Popcorn Sale Tomorrow

The PTA will be selling bags of popcorn for mornin snack tomorrow. Each bag will cost $0.50. 

I have extra money from past donations in case any families forget.

Schedule and Reminders for the Week of 3/17 - 3/21

Monday (D) - PE and Media Center
Tuesday (A) - Art
Wednesday (B) - Music
Thursday (C) - PE
Friday (D) - PE and Media Center

Please remember to bring a change of gym shoes on days we have PE and to return library books on days we visit the media center.

Reminders

Monday - 2nd trimester report cards will be coming home in your child's blue folder
Wednesday - Conferences - half day of school (AM ONLY)
Thursday - Conferences - half day of school (AM ONLY)

Mystery Readers

Here are two of our most recent mystery readers! Thank you so much to Brian B. and Mark J., for joining us and reading to the kindergartners!

We had so much fun listening to your stories!

If you are interested in our mystery reader program, please visit our classroom blog and click on the link on the left side which says Mystery Reader. We now have a sign-up genius page that lists all the open dates for the rest of the year.

Door Decorating

For March is Reading Month, each classroom decorated their door based on either the concept of reading or a specific book that their class enjoys. Our class chose the book Elmer!

Elmer is a fantastic book about a patchwork elephant. All of the other elephants are gray colored, and Elmer is not happy being different. One day, he leaves the herd and finds a berry bush. He uses the berry juice to paint himself gray, just like the other elephants. When he returns to his herd, the other elephants don't recognize him. But when it starts to rain, the berry juice is washed away and Elmer is back to being his colorful self! The other elephants remind Elmer how special he was at the beginning and how much they have always loved him because of that! They then decide to paint themselves to look like Elmer one day year, and Elmer will paint himself gray, so he will always be special!

Here is our Door Decor which includes our own patchwork elephant pictures. We also included reasons why we are special. 

During conferences, please check out our door to see why we are all special!

Push and Pull

In science, we are discussing the difference between push and pull. We have learned that when we move an object away from us, we are using 'push'. When we move an object towards us, we are using 'pull'.

We have practiced this different ways, including using our breath as an invisible force that can push small objects like feathers and cotton balls. We discovered this is just like when the wind pushes against a kite to make it fly, or when the wind pushes the leaves off of trees in the fall. 

Today we split up into teams to build a structure that can demonstrate both pushing and pulling a toy car or train. Here are some of the kindergarteners using force to push - 

Here we are using force to pull - 

Super Science Day 2014

Here we are celebrating Harlan's first Super Science Day!  In the morning, we visited the multipurpose room and were split up into smaller groups.  We were even mixed up with Mrs. mills and Mrs. Singer's friends!  Each group visited 10 stations brought by the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum were they were able to complete hands-on experiments!  These included...

learning about aerodynamics and making helicopters,

learning about different kinds of teeth and then matching real animal teeth to pictures,

 

 listening to the different sounds clear jars made and then finding the matching black jar using our sense of hearing,

 

learning about different animal beaks and why they are different shapes, and then using tools shaped like them they way that bird would use them to eat,

 

filling jars with water and them covering the tops with a screen, and discussing why the water does not spill out when you hold the jars inside out,

 

learning all about magnets,

 

 

 

learning about alternatives to Styrofoam and watching it melt in water to save the environment, 

 

 and making ooblock, both a solid and liquid at the same time.

We had so much fun on Super Science Day!   We can't wait for next year's Science Day!

Clifford Day

A few weeks ago, we celebrated Clifford Day!  We had so much fun seeing Clifford-themed activities in each of our workshops throughout the day!  It looked like our favorite center this year was "Give a Dog A Bone!"  At this math workshop station, the children picked different colored dog bones that each had a different price on them.  They then would match the bone to different items that cost that amount to buy for Clifford!  We also read several of his books, and even write about our favorite Clifford book.

Happy Clifford Day!

Harlan Auction Information

From the Harlan PTA and Auction Committee

Harlan Families,

We hope you have the 2014 Auction on your calendar for this Saturday, March 15th at the Bloomfield Open Hunt Club starting at 6pm.  We have been planning for close to two years for this event - the Harlan PTA's largest fundraiser.  We promise you will not be disappointed.  We have over 150 amazing items to bid on.  This includes over 50 "priceless" parties, outings and unique experiences your children will love thanks to the generosity of the Harlan Teachers and Staff.  For the parents, we have trips, parties, MSU, Red Wings, and Tiger's Tickets, a hot pink Beach Cruiser bike, beautiful jewelry, creative gift baskets and gift certificates to all of your favorite local attractions and restaurants.  

There will be a live Band (Good Gravy), amazing food, and great raffles.  Win your choice of vacations to Lake Tahoe, Churchill Downs, Napa Valley, Scottsdale or Las Vegas!  And don't miss the "Harlan Derby" video featuring all your favorite teachers racing to cross the finish line first.  Choose the winning teacher and you could win the 50/50 raffle.

If you've been waiting till the last minute, now's the time to BUY YOUR TICKETS!  To purchase on-line, go to: www.clickbidonline.com/harlan/tickets

Walk-ins are also welcome.  Don't forget your Derby Hat!

If you absolutely can't make it, you can still support Harlan by bidding remotely from your phone!  All you have to do is head to this address and register for a bidder number.  Between the hours of 6pm-10pm on Saturday March 15th, you can place bids!  It's easy and check out is done on your phone with a credit card. 

harlan.clickbid.mobi

Click "Register Today"

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the Party of the Year!  You won't want to miss it!

Sincerely,

The 2014 Harlan Auction Committee 

Recess Clothing

Now that the weather is starting to get a little warmer, we are able to go outside for recess again!

Please remember to send your child to school with snow pants, boots, hats and gloves each day in case we are able to go outside. As long as the temperature with the wind chill is 16° or higher, we will be going out.

I do have one pair of extra snow pants and boots, but please remember to send your child to school with their own just in case someone else is borrowing them that day.

Thank you!

KinderTown

As part of our past social studies unit, we created our own classroom economy!  For this, we learned the difference between needs and wants.  We learned that there are things we need to live like water, healthy food, shelter and clothing, and things we want, but do not need to live.  These include candy, toys, cars and iPads.

We also learned that there are two kinds of jobs that grown ups can have; someone who sells a good (like farmers, builders, and car salesman), and someone who provides a service (like doctors, teachers and police officers).  We defined goods a something you buy that you can touch.  A service would be a job that someone does to help you.

Finally, we learned that everyone in the world can be producers and consumers.  A producer is the person selling a good or service and a consumer is a customer.

With all this new knowledge, we set out to create our own city - KinderTown!  The children were split into 2 groups, half were producers and half were consumers.  We switched half way through, and played this for 3 days so that everyone could try different jobs.  Just like grown ups, the consumers were given wallets with money inside.  If they ran out of money, they could go to the bank to take more out. If they ran out of money again they needed to get a job in order to shop more later.

Here are as producers and consumers!

Our nail salon

The grocery store

The veteranarian / pet store 

The restaurant

Car dealership / car wash

The bakery

The bank (with Mr. Ron)